Many of the passenger vehicles now on the market are fitted with a sunroof system that includes a sunroof panel for selectively closing an opening formed in the roof of the vehicle and a drive unit for opening and closing the sunroof panel as desired. In particular, the outer slide sunroof system is known as a typical form of sunroof systems in which the sunroof panel is configured to be tilted up from the fully closed position thereof before being slid rearward to a position located above the roof panel of the vehicle to fully expose the opening in the roof. It is also known to provide a sunshade panel below the sunroof panel so as to be open and close the opening as desired. See Japanese patent laid open publication No. 2006-327353, for example.
When the sunroof panel or sunshade panel is about to be closed from an open position, a foreign object such as the hand or head of a vehicle occupant or a drooping branch hanging from a tree could be caught in the path of the sliding movement of the panel, and may be eventually pinched by the panel. Therefore, a proposal has been made to have the movement of the sunshade panel precede the closing movement of the sunroof panel and detect an abnormal increase in the load of the drive unit for the sunshade panel so that the movement of the sunshade panel may be reversed or stopped upon detection of the pinching of a foreign object, and any inconvenience caused by a pinching of an object may be avoided. See Japanese patent laid open publication No. 2002-096640, for example.
Also, when a sunroof panel or a sunshade panel is moving from a closed position in an opening direction, a foreign object located outside the vehicle may be caught by the moving panel. A technology for preventing such an occurrence is proposed in Japanese patent laid open publication No. 2008-239040.
The sunroof panel and sunshade panel are required to open and close the opening in the roof in a coordinated manner, and it is necessary to coordinate the movements of the two panels when one of the panels encounters an obstacle. The prior art disclosed in patent document 2 is useful only when the sunshade panel pinches a foreign object, and is therefore unable to cope with a situation where a foreign object is pinched only by the sunroof panel. It is also unacceptable to close the sunshade panel ahead of the sunroof panel as it prevents for the vehicle operator to visually confirm that the sunroof panel is properly closed.